Sleep was not for me, despite Harley's injunction, and although I was
early afoot, the big house was already astir with significant movements
which set the imagination on fire, to conjure up again the moonlight
scene in the garden, making mock of the song of the birds and of the
glory of the morning.

Manoel replied to my ring, and prepared my bath, but it was easy to see
that he had not slept.

No sound came from Harley's room, therefore I did not disturb him, but
proceeded downstairs in the hope of finding Miss Beverley about. Pedro
was in the hall, talking to Mrs. Fisher, and:

"She didn't go to her room until after four o'clock, sir, but Nita
tells me that she will be down any moment now."

"Ah," said I, and lighting a cigarette, I walked out of the open doors
into the courtyard.

I dreaded all the ghastly official formalities which the day would
bring, since I realized that the brunt of the trouble must fall upon
the shoulders of Miss Beverley in the absence of Madame de Staemer.

I wandered about restlessly, awaiting the girl's appearance. A little
two seater was drawn up in the courtyard, but I had not paid much
attention to it, until, wandering through the opening in the box hedge
and on along the gravel path, I saw unfamiliar figures moving in the
billiard room, and turned, hastily retracing my steps. Officialdom was
at work already, and I knew that there would be no rest for any of us
from that hour onward.

As I reentered the hall I saw Val Beverley coming down the staircase.
She looked pale, but seemed to be in better spirits than I could have
hoped for, although there were dark shadows under her eyes.

"He will. We had great difficulty in persuading him not to demand your
presence last night."

"It was impossible," she protested. "It would have been cruel to make
me leave Madame in the circumstances."

"We realized this, Miss Beverley, but you will have to face the ordeal
this morning."

We walked through into the library, where a maid white-faced and
frightened looking, was dusting in a desultory fashion. She went out as
we entered, and Val Beverley stood looking from the open window out
into the rose garden bathed in the morning sunlight.

"Oh, Heavens," she said, clenching her hands desperately, "even now I
cannot realize that the horrible thing is true." She turned to me. "Who
can possibly have committed this cold-blooded crime?" she said in a low
voice. "What does Mr. Harley think? Has he any idea, any idea
whatever?"

"Not that he has confided to me," I said, watching her intently. "But
tell me, does Madame de Staemer know yet?"

"She knows! Oh, Mr. Knox! to me that is the most horrible thing of all:
that she knows, that she must have known all along--that the mere sound
of the shot told her everything!"

"You realize, now," I said, quietly, "that she had anticipated the
end?"

"Yes, yes. This was the meaning of the sorrow which I had seen so often
in her eyes, the meaning of so much that puzzled me in her words, the
explanation of lots of little things which have made me wonder in the
past."

"I have never been so frightened in all my life as I was last night.
Sleep was utterly out of the question. There was mystery in the very
air. I knew, oh, Mr. Knox, in some way I knew that a tragedy was going
to happen."

"I believe I knew, too," I said. "Good God, to think that we might have
saved him!"

"I am afraid I have very little to tell him. I was sitting in my room
in an appalling state of nerves when the shot was fired. I was not even
reading; I was just waiting, waiting, for something to happen."

"No," replied the girl, a puzzled frown appearing between her brows.
"She cried out something in French. The intonation told me that it was
French, although I could not detect a single word. Then I thought I
heard a moan."

"Yes. I turned on the light and succeeded in partly raising her, but
she was too heavy for me to lift. I was still trying to revive her when
Pedro opened the door of the servants' quarters. Oh," she closed her
eyes wearily, "I shall never forget it."

"Very well," she said, and as she turned and retraced her steps, he
followed her back into the library.

I walked out to the courtyard, and avoiding the Tudor garden and the
billiard room, turned in the other direction, passing the stables where
Jim, the negro groom, saluted me very sadly, and proceeded round to the
south side of the house.

Inspector Aylesbury, I perceived, had wasted no time. I counted no
fewer than four men, two of them in uniform, searching the lawns and
the slopes beyond, although what they were looking for I could not
imagine.

Giving the library a wide berth, I walked along the second terrace, and
presently came in sight of the east wing and the tower. There,
apparently engaged in studying the rhododendrons, I saw Paul Harley.

He signalled to me, and, crossing the lawn, I joined him where he
stood.

"You see, Knox," he said, speaking in the eager manner which betokened
a rapidly working brain, "this is the path which the Colonel must have
followed last night. Yonder is the door by which, according to his own
account, he came out on a previous occasion, walking in his sleep. Do
you remember?"

"Well, Pedro found it unlocked this morning. You see it faces
practically due south, and the Colonel's bedroom is immediately above
us where we stand." He stared at me queerly. "I must have passed this
door last night only a few moments before the Colonel came out, for I
was just crossing the courtyard and could see you at my window at the
moment when you saw poor Menendez enter the Tudor garden. He must have
actually been walking around the east wing at the same time that I was
walking around the west. Now, I am going to show you something, Knox,
something which I have just discovered."

From his waistcoat pocket he took out a half-smoked cigarette. I stared
at it uncomprehendingly.

"Of course," he continued, "the weather has been bone dry for more than
a week now, and it may have lain there for a long time, but to me,
Knox, to me it looks suspiciously fresh."

And thereupon, to my amazement, he set off through the rhododendron
bushes in the direction of the tower!

Utterly unable to grasp the meaning of his behaviour, I followed,
nevertheless, and as we rounded the corner of the tower Harley pulled
up short, and:

"I am not mad," he explained rather breathlessly, "but I wanted to
avoid being seen by that constable who is prowling about at the bottom
of the lawn making signals in the direction of the library. Presumably
he is replying to Inspector Aylesbury who wants to talk to us. I am
determined to interview Camber before submitting to further official
interrogation. It must be a cross-country journey, Knox. I am afraid we
shall be a very muddy pair, but great issues may hang upon the success
of our expedition."

He set off briskly toward a belt of shrubbery which marked the edge of
the little stream. Appreciating something of his intentions, I followed
his lead unquestioningly; and, scrambling through the bushes:

"This was the point at which I descended last night," he said. "You
will have to wade, Knox, but the water is hardly above one's ankles."

He dropped into the brook, waded across, and began to climb up the
opposite bank. I imitated his movements, and presently, having
scrambled up on the farther side, we found ourselves standing on a
narrow bank immediately under that summer house which Colin Camber had
told me he had formerly used as a study.

"We can scarcely present ourselves at the kitchen door," murmured
Harley; "therefore we must try to find a way round to the front. There
is barbed wire here. Be careful."

I had now entered with zest into the business, and so the pair of us
waded through rank grass which in places was waist high, and on through
a perfect wilderness of weeds in which nettles dominated. Presently we
came to a dry ditch, which we negotiated successfully, to find
ourselves upon the high road some hundred yards to the west of the
Guest House.

"I predict an unfriendly reception," I said, panting from my exertions,
and surveying my friend, who was a mockery of his ordinarily spruce
self.

"We must face it," he replied, grimly. "He has everything to gain by
being civil to us."